


Contra Mundum

by kittysorceress



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternative Universe - Dumbledore joins Grindelwald, M/M, Search for the Deathly Hallows, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28933734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittysorceress/pseuds/kittysorceress
Summary: Albus is offered a chance to make a different choice and take a different path. And so, he travels to Europe.(Written for the Grindledore Holiday Exchange 2020, with a prompt of a time-travel fix-it/do-over of 1899.)
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 5
Kudos: 62
Collections: Grindeldore Holiday Exchange 2020





	Contra Mundum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MavenMorozova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MavenMorozova/gifts).



> Happy Holidays! I hope this time-travel do-over adventure gives you just enough angst and plenty of good Grindeldore feelings!
> 
> The title is a Latin phrase meaning 'Against the world' or 'Defying everyone', which I think suits these young men quite well, and is also a little reference to one of my favourite words of literature, Brideshead Revisited.

He was falling from the tower. There was a roar, a rush of air, and then everything was gone.

He lay face down, listening to the ringing silence.

He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not perfectly sure he was there himself.

But little by little, it occurred to him that he must exist, that he must be somewhere. He could feel his face half-pressed against a cool surface, his long hair spread wide and tickling his bare cheek.

He sat up and touched his face. There were no glasses pressed against his nose, which ached as though it had just been broken. He winced as he felt the bend below the bruising. He brought his hand to his chin. His beard was wispy and far shorter than it had been in decades. He moved his hand back and saw that it was no longer black and shrivelled, but whole and undamaged save for writing calluses. The skin of his wrist, peeking from the sleeve of midnight blue robes, was flushed with the colour of youth.

He stood up and looked around. The space glittered and glistened with sunlight that seemed to come from all directions. At first, it seemed to be nowhere in particular, but as he looked more, there was more to see.

He turned slowly on the spot as a familiar garden seemed to materialise around him. In the distance, beyond the horizon, there was a warm and welcoming glow.

The silence was broken by a tinkling laugh. ‘At last! I’ve been waiting for you!’

Albus spun around. Ariana was skipping towards him, wearing her favourite blue dress, her hair crowned with daisies the way it had been the day before she died. She seemed to radiate with happiness and love.

All at once, Albus knew that this was the end.

‘My dear brother.’ She spread her arms wide and drew him into an embrace. ‘My clever and stupid older brother. Have you finished saving the world then?’

‘I did all that I could. I just hope it was enough,’ he heard his own young voice reply. He breathed in the scent of her hair, soft and familiar, and a wave of guilt crashed over him. ‘I’m so sorry for the wrong I did to you. I wish I could take that moment back.’

‘It was a mistake, one I forgave you for a very long time ago. One for which you should have forgiven yourself, too,’ she pulled away from Albus and smiled kindly, her blue eyes sparkling. ‘Besides, if there was a moment you could change, another choice you could have made, we both know that my death is not it.’

‘Ariana, no. I would never…’ he started in reply, but the words sat wrong on his tongue.

‘No?’

He paused. ‘Well, perhaps.’

After a moment, which could have been an eon, Albus looked away from his sister and towards the growing light on the horizon.

‘Go, then,’ said Ariana. ‘Make a different choice. I have waited all this time for you to join me, I can wait a little longer.’

He found himself moving towards the glow, one foot in front of the other as though some unworldly magic was drawing him forth. The warmth filled his chest and spread through his fingers and shivered along his spine.

Then there was nothing again.

* * *

He lay face down, listening to the ringing silence.

No, not silence. A murmur of voices grew louder around him.

Where was he?

His face was pressed against cold tile. He could taste blood at the back of his throat. His nose stung, his eyes watered.

‘Get up, you coward!’ shouted Aberforth. ‘Get up and face what you have done!’

Yes, he remembered now. His sister’s funeral.

Pulling himself from the floor in front of the altar, he looked at the shocked and hurt faces of the wizards and witches who had witnessed the fight between the brothers. He watched as Professor Bagshot shooed them to the rear of the church and pulled Aberforth down to sit in a pew.

His brother’s face was contorted with rage and grief, and stained with tears.

Albus pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from his broken nose. The deep red stained the soft blue fabric, settling in a curve around the embroidered cursive ‘G’ at the corner.

Something other than grief, or something much like it but altogether different, gripped at his heart. He looked at the bloodied monogram, then to his brother and the professor, and back again.

Any choice he made now, he would have to live with for the rest of his life.

‘I’m leaving,’ he declared quietly and calmly, without looking either his brother or neighbour directly in the eye. ‘I no longer have any reason to stay in Godric’s Hollow, or England for that matter. If you need me, I’m sure the family owl will find me wherever it is that I end up.’

And with that, he turned on his heel and disapparated away.

* * *

London was unusually cold for September. The chill wind swept up from the Thames and whistled through Knockturn Alley, pushing the few shoppers on the street deeper into the shadows under the eaves and in the nooks and crannies between the buildings.

With his newly purchased books, an unusual cigarette lighter, and some questionably-legal potions ingredients tucked safely in a parcel under his arm, Albus drew his robes closer around himself as he peered through the windows of the little stores of oddities. He shivered against the cold as he looked over trinket and cauldrons and crypto-magical calculators and considered what else he might need on his journey and whether he might even expect to return to England any time soon. As he reached the end of the alley, he heard a unfamiliar voice call to him from the entry of the pawnbrokers’ shop.

‘Albus Dumbledore? Is that you?’

‘Do I know you?’ Albus replied, looking down at the unfamiliar man at the doorstep.

The man was perhaps twenty-five years old, with close-cropped brown hair and bright brown eyes, and quite a deal shorter than Albus. He was dressed in robes that once might have be fine, but were now a generation out of fashion and just as well-worn. The only thing that marked him as perhaps more significant than he seemed was a heavy gold signet ring which he wore on his left hand, set with a stone marked by the sign of the Deathly Hallows.

All of a sudden, a strange feeling surged in Albus’ chest. A memories stirred of late nights and conspiratorial theories and three very special objects, of Gellert reading a description of the small dark stone of resurrection, of the hours they had spent combing the pebbles around the graves of the Peverell Brothers.

He knew at once that he needed that ring.

‘You mustn’t remember me,’ said the man as he made his way closer to Albus to offer a hand in greeting. ‘Marvolo Gaunt. I was the Seventh Year Slytherin Prefect the year you came up to Hogwarts.’

Albus didn’t remember at all, but smiled politely and shook the offered hand. ‘Gaunt. Of course.’

‘My family were all very sorry to hear the outcome of your father’s trial back then. Dreadful business, terrible mistake on the part of the Ministry defending Muggles like that,’ Gaunt continued, without much breath in between. ‘And you lost your mother and sister just recently, we saw in the Prophet over summer. My wife read the obituaries and couldn’t stop crying for the thought of the death of the little girl in particular. But she is expecting, you know, and women are wont to sob at most anything at the best of times. She told me just yesterday, “Marvie dear, I can’t imagine what that poor family must have gone through.” And now, here you are, by Salazar. So, let me give you my condolences and I can tell my wife that I did, and she can have a sob about that tonight as well.’

Albus didn’t quite know what to say in response to the strange little monologue from the man, but settled for nodding in what he hoped would come across as grief-stricken resolve and thanks. The feeling pulsed in his chest as he looked again at the ring on Gaunt’s hand.

‘Can I buy you a drink, Dumbledore?’ continued Gaunt, unphased by Albus’ silence thus far. ‘I was just on my way to the Cauldron.’

‘No, thank you. I’ve got a long-distance apparition ahead of me. I’m travelling to Europe to meet with a friend.’

‘Ah well, probably for the best,’ Gaunt replied, tapping his pocket which jangled with the tell-tale sound of coin, ‘My wife will be wanting the money from the platter I just pawned off. Real silver, you know. But it’s useless to us, we don’t have enough company to warrant keeping that sort of thing around the place. It’s not a real heirloom, see.’

‘Not like your ring?’ Albus asked, keeping his tone light. ‘That’s the… uh… Peverell coat of arms, isn’t it?’

‘It is indeed! Passed right down from Cadmus Peverell himself!’ Gaunt smiled widely and clapped Albus on the shoulder, ‘I knew you were one of the good ones, Dumbledore, even if you were sorted Gryffindor! Very few wizards have such an excellent knowledge of the lore of the old families.’

‘Oh, the Peverell line is of a particular interest of mine,’ Albus replied with not a hint of a lie. ‘My dear friend, the one I travel to see tomorrow, spent much of the summer with me in Godric’s Hollow in earnest study of the history of the family. We are hoping to uncover the true story of the brothers buried in the graveyard at St Clementine’s.’

‘Indeed!’ cried Gaunt excitedly. ‘Indeed! A fine family to be sure. One of the best, not a dirt-blood among them. But so much of their history is lost. All daughters, you see, so the name died out some time ago. Such a shame.’

Albus looked at the ring again and pulsing feeling grew stronger and louder in his chest.

‘Gaunt, I have a proposal for you. My friend has an affinity for historical magical objects and uses them to assist in his divination. Would you at all be willing to loan me that interesting heirloom for our work on the Peverell family? It might just be the missing link to our next discovery.’

A shadow came over Gaunt’s face and he drew a protective hand over the bauble.

‘Of course, I would be happy to pay you a deposit of sorts, to thank you for your trouble,’ Albus pulled a small silk bag from his pocket and counted out several coins. ‘Would 10 Galleons suffice?’

‘Oh, that would do nicely,’ the shadow was replaced with a greedy gleam and Gaunt pulled the ring from his finger eagerly, tossing it carelessly to Albus and snatching up the gold. After counting the coins, he looked back at the silk bag then up at Albus with an expectant sort of expression on his face. ‘For another five, I’ll even let you keep it. Seeing as you are of the right sort.’

Albus didn’t hesitate and passed the last of the gold to the man.

‘It’s been a pleasure doing business with you Gaunt. Give my best wishes to your wife.’

And then, before any more could be said or any deals undone, Albus slipped the ring onto his finger and disapparated with a loud crack.

* * *

Even after dusk, the late summer air hung heavy and hot over the wizarding village of Oswald am See.

Gellert sat in the gabled window seat of his rented attic room, watching the villagers mill around the square as they sang and laughed and dawdled on their way home from the tavern. It was the birthday of one of the barman’s sons, so the food had been plentiful and the drinks had been many. He had braved the place earlier in the afternoon, seeking out another bottle of wine for his private enjoyment, and had very little interest in staying amongst the revelry for more time than was strictly necessary.

As much as he enjoyed the company of wizard-kind in general, he certainly preferred solitude. Solitude, or the company of one wizard In particular…

He sighed and poured a glass of wine for himself, then picked up the novel he had abandoned on the side table. He began to read to the gentle accompaniment of the village’s evening celebrations, every now and then stealing a glance to the wandmaker’s shop across the square.

This had not been how he had hoped to spend his first week back in Austria.

* * *

It took Albus than an entire day to even near his destination.

First came a meeting with the passport office at the Ministry in London, then on to France to record his arrival in Europe and complete the reams of required paperwork before he was allowed to apparate to Vienna. By the time he arrived at the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Enclave, the travel office was already closed and he was directed to a magic-friendly establishment to rest from his journey before he might register his arrival in the morning. 

In his quaint hotel room that night, the anxiety of the next day played on his mind. He lay on the small bed and gazed at the ceiling and pondered the spoils of his chance encounter with Gaunt.

The ring was heavy, much heavier than it had appeared on Gaunt's stubby finger, but there was a delicateness to the gold filigree in which the stone was set. The stone itself was a deep black onyx with the Hallows engraved deep into its surface. Albus imagined that he could feel or hear a humming magic from within the thing, but as he tried to focus upon the feeling, his mind slipped onto other thoughts. It was like the ring did not want to be observed as anything more than an inconsequential trinket.

There was only one thing for it.

He pulled the ring carefully from his finger and turned it once, twice, a third time.

The air around him pulsed.

* * *

When Albus finally apparated into the town square of Oswald am See the next day, the stallholders at the morning markets were already starting to pack away their wares. He stood a moment by the fountain, finding his bearings.

He had little to go on but the descriptions of the place which Gellert had given in their planning weeks ago, a half-remembered address that had been pinned on his wall, and a sense that his lover would be unlikely to stray from the town centre before his task was completed.

After a moment he spied the target, Gregorovitch Zauberstäbe, just past the northern corner of the square. He turned and followed a line of sight from the wandmakers’ to a tea shop on the western edge.

And when he glanced through the front window, an unbridled grin spread across his face.

* * *

For the sixth morning in a row, Gellert sat at the little table by the window of Frau Wagner’s tea shop, sipping at a fresh pot of tea and nibbling at pastries as he worked on his latest essay, every now and then glancing up at the shop across the way and scribbling a note or two on the back of his parchment.

By now, he knew that Gregorovitch went downstairs from the rooms above the shop to begin work at precisely 8am each day, but wouldn’t open the doors to customers for another hour or two. He would close the shop for around midday for lunch, then open again until dinnertime, but frequently stay in the workshop until the small hours of the morning. After a week of observations, Gellert was certain that he had a window of no more than four hours in the early morning in which he would be least likely to be caught in his endeavours.

But he had no way yet to tell what sorts of security enchantments or curses might be protecting the place, and he could not help but feel that the reconnaissance mission was taking far too long with only his own mind to piece the puzzle together. Moreover, he was frustrated and wary of staying in one place for long enough to be recognised as ‘that lovely young man boarding in Herr Hofmann’s spare rooms’.

The bell at the door of the tea house chimed and Gellert shook his head, turning back to his essay on the subjugation of sentient magical creatures. He had just picked up his quill and begun his next thoughts on the education of young werewolves when a familiar voice behind him caused his heart leap into his throat.

‘Always at your papers, aren’t you, my dear?’

* * *

The last of the tea had been abandoned, a few coins thrown haphazardly on the table before Gellert took Albus’ hand silently and led him out into the square and towards his lodgings.

No more words passed between them as they had hurried up the stairs to Gellert’s rooms, and barely had the door closed behind them before lips met wanting lips and desperate hands grasped at unwanted clothing.

It was just ten days since they had parted but, as they touched, it was as though no time had passed at all.

And then, when it was all over, Albus found his mind wandering, as it so often did after intimate moments. He wondered why he had ever thought he could be content to let Gellert leave without him, why he had thought that denying himself this love was something he deserved after the accident with Ariana…

‘Turn your brain off, I can still hear the cogs turning,’ Gellert laughed sleepily, pressing his reddened face against Albus’ warm chest and placing a soft kiss against it. ‘How I missed you.’

‘And I you,’ Albus replied, burying his face into Gellert’s soft blond curls and breathing the comforting scent of lavender and citrus deep into his lungs. ‘I love you.’

* * *

The two young men stared at the ring on the small coffee table between them.

‘It's a fine piece, but are you sure that it's what we are looking for? It seems so... ordinary.'

'I'm certain. And it is not at all ordinary! Close your eyes and focus on the ring, feel its magic properly.'

Gellert closed his eyes and Albus watched as the expression on his lover's face moved from calm, to confusion, to frustration. Gellert snapped his eyes open and exclaimed in indignation, 'I can't!'

'Precisely,' Albus smirked, picking up the ring and passing it to him. 'It's a clever thing, hiding its nature from anyone who holds an interest.'

'Fascinating,' Gellert looked closer at the engraving, careful not to turn it more than twice. 'And you've tested its powers, I presume? Just to be sure?'

'I have, yes, but it...' Albus began, then paused as he tried to find the right words. He took the ring back from Gellert and placed it on his finger again before continuing. 'It does not function exactly in the manner we had thought. The souls it resurrects, they are not corporeal or long-lived. More like ghosts, or portraits, of the people you call. They stay a moment and you can converse, but you cannot touch them and they cannot affect the world in which they appear. And, after a few minutes, they return again from whence they came.'

Gellert's disappointment was unmistakable and hung in the silence between them. Albus could see it in the set of his jaw and the darkening of his eyes, the way he turned slightly away and looked out towards the window as he took a deep and unsettling breath.

'No Inferi then. So it is entirely useless for our cause,' he said at last, still turned away from Albus, his tone matter-of-fact and final.

Albus did not agree, but said nothing in response, sensing that now was not the moment to suggest any alternative uses for the Hallowed ring.

* * *

The Elder Wand came into their possession three nights later, the work of a clever midnight distraction in the square by Albus and some acrobatic cat-burgling by Gellert.

With two of the three fabled Hallows in their possession, the young men fled Austria before the dawn had broken and Gregorovitch was even aware that the most prized item in his collection had been taken.

Indeed, it would be some weeks before the wand, or the men who had been living at Herr Hoffman’s, were even noticed to be missing.

* * *

And so began in earnest the fight for The Greater Good.

Albus and Gellert travelled first to Amsterdam, where a former Durmstrang classmate of Gellert’s offered shelter and connections to others who had read Gellert’s essays and were sympathetic to their cause. There they spoke and planned with those witches and wizards, familiarising themselves with the nuances of politics outside their own limited experience and further shaping their views on the influence of muggles and the supremacy of magic. They developed a new manifesto, writing and rewriting after each new idea and conversation, until they were satisfied with their work.

After a few months, they took their latest drafts and a few followers and moved on to Paris. Here, they rented a small apartment in the artistic part of the wizarding streets and hosted soirees for those interested in their cause. Gradually, more and more wizarding kind flocked to these parties, fascinated to hear the articulate and handsome young men speak so impassionedly about the plight of magic.

But the young men, for all their burgeoning success and their growing league of supporters, were not yet content.

The final Hallow still eluded them.

* * *

‘I never asked you, who did you recall when you tested the stone?’ Gellert asked suddenly one evening, nearly a year since the object had first come into their possession. ‘That night, before you joined me in Austria?’

The question startled Albus, who nearly dropped the paintbrush he was holding onto the half-painted banner spread across the kitchen table that currently read _The Greate_. He placed the brush carefully back in the pot and walked over to join his lover on the rug by the fire. ‘I assumed you didn’t want to know.’

‘I didn’t, at first,’ Gellert pulled Albus into a nervous embrace, as he often did after a bad Vision or in a moment of self-doubt. ‘I suspect I know the answer, and I didn’t want to consider that perhaps she had told you something that you would not be able to forget.’

‘Ariana didn’t tell me that you’re a monster who should be solely punished for your death, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ Albus chuckled, his soft laugher sending warming vibrations through Gellert’s chest. ‘In fact, she said the strangest thing. She told me that I should not dwell on the choices I once made, but instead “use this second chance to change the world” and not to be “quite so afraid of love this time”. It was very bizarre.’

‘Second chance? This time?’ Gellert pulled back, his face incredulous.

‘You know as much I do!’ laughed Albus again. ‘It really was the most unusual interaction. But I was certain that it was Ariana, she knew what had happened to her and what had happened since. She told me I should have whacked Aberforth back for my nose, she told me to hurry on to find you before you moved along to your next destination, and she even told me off for wearing odd-coloured socks.’

‘That certainly sounds like the Ariana I knew,’ Gellert sighed fondly. ‘I am sorry her short life had to end in such a fashion.’

‘She wasn’t sorry that the duel was the end of her story,’ Albus smiled a little sadly, thinking back to the ghostly girl who had appeared in that tiny hotel room. ‘She seemed to think that this was the way that things were meant to be…’

Gellert took Albus’ hand and brought it to his lips for a gentle kiss, his mis-matched eyes deep with sincerity and breaking Albus from his reverie.

‘Of course this is the way that things are meant to be. After all, I couldn’t possibly imagine a life without you by my side, my dear Albus.’


End file.
